I Really Am Bipolar

I have been officially bipolar since 1978, when I was correctly diagnosed after three years of hell.  First they got me settled down with lithium and stellazine, and I don't know what else; then someone confirmed the diagnosis; you are bipolar when your condition stabilizes on lithium.  I was so relieved that I immediately accepted the diagnosis.  From there on I let psychiatrists push psychotropics on me to such a degree that I lived like a sane person, got jobs, got into a good marriage, went to grad school and got a PhD, and realized that being a college professor was not a dream, but a nightmare.  My life felt tinted gray, but they weren't the worst years of my life.

But I digress.  That's one feature of hypermania.

Still, after all these years I don't think I quite realized what it meant to be stuck with bipolar.  This truth has been forcing its way in since that meeting last Tuesday in which the shrink he said he couldn't do a thing for me.  At the moment, I am sleeping okay.  The moodswings are another story.  The regular cycling of up/down days that Seroquel had damped has returned.

Meanwhile, life goes on.  On the heels of Tom's last fall, we are in the process of figuring out when and how to move to the retirement home we like.  At first we thought I would go there into a one-bedroom, where I might have a stress-free life while Tom stayed in the house and got some things done (and didn't fall down again).  But our financial counselor nixed that - just too expensive month by month.  By that time, though, I had chosen the colors for my beautiful little one bedroom.  (They paint for you.)  And just last week I got to see them on the walls.  Here is the living room -

 I chose those colors from a favorite still life with apples.  The windowsill is not purple, but brown, and the coral is really that bright.  It seems much brighter than it did on an apple and a little paint sample.  The yellow is pretty yellow, too.  I wanted the living room to be warm and stimulating. 

Above is a view of the living room from the bedroom.  Fortunately, I was inspired to choose the bedroom colors by a serene mountain scene.  That's a kind of French blue, not too vibrant, and the window wall is the faintest blush pink.  Actually, this room is a little bright too, in daylight, but feels overall serene and pretty.

The bathroom turned out perfect though.  The aqua is well-represented in the photo to the right.  I might go for that in the next place.

Here's my point:  When the admissions officer opened the door to that warm, really warm coral and yellow, I thought, "You can tell these colors were ordered by a manic."  It was one of those small experiences that keep coming along; some people call that gradual enlightenment.

As realizations do, that truth has been soaking in.  When I feel real good, confident, joyful, that can be hypermania.  It can lead to poor decisions.  I have been revisiting memories of extravagant purchases, of spontaneous travel.  And from the depressed side I remember raising my voice at someone who was just trying to help, and saying too much in another situation.  These things are called "inappropriate behavior" in the psych wards.

 I really am bipolar.

I really am stuck with this self and its chemical swings. Whether bipolar is a disorder or a chronic illness it's hard to live with.  And I think it's true, there's no mood-stabilizer I can take.  So I need to take seriously the problem of life style, how to live well enough on up days and down days.  Getting through hypermania has challenges, but is somehow more manageable than depression.  And a depression is probably coming tomorrow.  We'll see. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha.

Waking Up All Over Again

Wheat Field, Vincent van Gogh

I have learned that waking up to reality means waking up over and over - these can be called realizations as opposed to more mystical epiphanies.  You realize something.  Then years later you realize it a little better, more deeply.  This is about one that took me fifteen years.  Therein lies a tale.

It is the story of when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 - a diagnosis that put me into the second half of my life in an instant.  By that I mean that all six urgent imperative things on that day's to-do list crumbled to dust.  Goals, dramas, everything - my God, you mean I could die?  Let me emphasize that:
  I could die?
What, at 53? 

I had no symptoms, no family history.  The growth was found on a routine annual mammogram that I'd put off for six months because, you know, I hate mammograms.  They hurt.  The small but mighty growth was already invasive.  The surgeon told me that by the time a lump was noticeable, it would have metastasized everywhere in my body.  I am alive today only because I had a privileged life that took good health insurance for granted, and I was raised to be a dutiful person.

My body will die.  You may think you know that, whatever age you are, but what I've learned is that most people don't, really.  They can live to be 90 and get mad that they're dying.  Astonished that their 80-year-old mother dies.  I knew a woman of around age 50 who died of a heart attack in the recovery room after an elective surgery, but was revived.  I visited her in the hospital and she was so delighted and relieved to be alive.  She was in a weekly group I was in, so I saw her bright eyes glaze over as the weeks went by until she was her old self again, overscheduled, on yet another fad diet. Sleepwalking.

After my own surgery I went for radiation therapy five days a week, all by my brave little self.  It was wretched.  They strap you down, they shut a big lead door.  You have never been more alone in your life. 

I was so anxious that through all those treatments I recited the 23rd psalm over and over to myself in my mind.  I belonged to a Unitarian church, and it had been decades since I would have called myself a Christian, but I had not rejected the good parts. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.......That's what came to me.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.  He leadeth me beside the still waters.  He restoreth my soul.

Water Lilies, Claude Monet

 I often waited for my treatment in a tiny waiting room, shivering in my hospital gown, with a cheerful African-American woman named Mary whose kids had bought her a beautiful yellow satin pajama top because none of the gowns were big enough for her.  She wore a pendant with a portrait of the pretty Caucasian Jesus of my Sunday School posters. Maybe that had inspired me.

One day we were talking aimlessly and she said, "At first I thought, Why me?  Then one day I realized, Why not me?"  I took that in, but I knew I didn't quite get it, though "Why me?" had not been one of my own thoughts. I don't know if I had thoughts, or just panic.

Here's what I think now:  "Why me?" comes from being located in our small individual self.  It's easy to see that you have friends whose lifestyles are way worse than yours, and you eat right, and yet you're the one who got hepatitis - it isn't fair.  In some subtle way, we believe things should be fair.

I don't know what made me think of this recently, but when I did I said to Tom, "Oh.  I get it. Why not me? comes from realizing our oneness."  Buddhist talk, meaning that the larger point of view understands our common humanity and mortality.  Everything and everyone's going to die - why would I be the exception to that?  Everyone's subject to accidents, why would I not be? 

If the idea gives you the shivers, The Five Remembrances are printed at the bottom of this blog.  This traditional Buddhist chant has helped me get used to the idea.  Well, somewhat.